Letters: How will Boris Johnson pay for all his promises?

SIR - Exaltation of the new prime minister by the chairman of South West Tories Peter Booth is no surprise. He belongs to the tiny minority of voters who appointed him.

The new PM may talk of 20,000 extra police officers but that is around the number lost whilst Cameron and May were incumbents.

Meanwhile, does the promise of 10,000 new prison places presage fewer unsolved crimes or should we not expect too much from the new crime-prevention initiatives?

This is vacuous electioneering fanfare and belongs to the days of the fatuous law and order debates at Tory Party conferences.

On 22nd July 2019 the then home secretary, in a reply to Yvette Cooper of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said that it was not government policy to recruit another 20,000 police officers; that it was the direction in which he wanted to move.

His clarification was understandable. Public services are dependent upon taxation. That home secretary is now chancellor and has declared himself a low tax guy.

In 2017 Theresa May told a nurse there was no magic money tree to fund her pay increase. So how would the Exchequer finance another 20,000 police officers and another 10,000 prison places?

It also has to find €39 billion in November, or can that creditor go whistle?

H. Fletcher, Address supplied